Thursday, May 03, 2007

PBS Special "The Mormons"

This week PBS hosted a special on the "Mormons". I didn't realize it was a two part series, but frankly, even if I had, I wouldn't have watched it all. In fact, I was so disgusted after an hour in to it that I stopped watching and went to bed. People think that because something is shown on PBS that it is done with great research and care. Well, at least I used to think that, but not now. This wasn't an informative show, this was a smear campaign. Not only was it an attempt to discredit our religion, but I think it was a political move to discredit Mitt Romney. And frankly, the far left is anti-religion in my view anyway, so it was probably also an attempt to discredit religion in general.

I think what bothered me most was that the majority of people who were interviewed were either anti-Mormon, or apostates. But they were so clever in the way they filmed it. They would have the person's name on the screen, but underneath they wouldn't write, "Apostate member", they would write something like, "former church educator". Then that person would say all of these apostate comments. I kept thinking maybe they would show both sides, interview some really strong members, not authorities, just regular members. They did have a few general church authorities speak, and their comments were good, but by and large, most of the people interviewed were anti-Mormon or apostate.

Another thing that really bothered me was the amount of untruths. This had to be a smear campaign, because a true reporter would want to accurately present the truth. This was so full of untruths, and twisted facts as to be laughable. And the things that were facts were presented in a very biased way.

One time a co worker of my husband was talking to him about our religion. This man is a born again Christian, and has already told my husband that he is sure my husband is going to hell. I can't remember the topic, but he asked my husband a question about our beliefs. When my husband answered that we believed such and such, the man answered, "No you don't. You don't know what you believe". He couldn't accept that we believed anything the same as him. My husband didn't argue with him. Arguing religion gets you nowhere. But in truth, we are some of the most well educated religions there is. As teenagers we spend an hour every morning before school in a seminary class. One full year is devoted to studying the Old Testament. One full year is devoted to studying the New Testament. One full year is devoted to studying the Book of Mormon. One full year is devoted to studying Church History. In addition, many of us serve as missionaries, and teach others our beliefs. We are not ignorant about our beliefs. We also have a weekly family home evening wherein we teach our children. We study the scriptures daily. To present something as off the mark as this program and think that we as members won't notice, is totally incomprehensible.

The other interesting thing to me was that our true doctrine was for the most part overlooked. They focused so much time and energy on the more "controversial" subjects, that the true nature of our religion was overlooked all together. They briefly mentioned the Book of Mormon, but didn't represent it fairly.

I know there are many religions that teach their congregations that we are a cult, or that we are of the devil. They spend so much money to fight us and defame us. Do you know how much money our church spends each year to combat this? Do you know how much money our church spends each year to tear down other churches? ZERO We don't do it, we never have, never will. In my opinion, only a religion that is insecure in their own beliefs would spend money and time trying to tear down another. We are secure in our beliefs. We are happy to explain them to others. In our opinion, it all comes down to one simple test. This is a promise included in the Book of Mormon. It basically challenges people to study our religion, and think logically for themselves. Then it promises that if a person is to pray and ask God if it is true, He will let them know. It's as simple as that. Case closed.

3 comments:

I didn't see it, but several coworkers who saw both, thought it was well-balanced...I agree though that there is too much misrepresentation on the LDS faith...I am always amazed at how little people know and the misconceptions they have.

I think that's just the way the News is. It's their version of the truth, aren't there many, many versions of every story? I never realized how poorly things were written until my husband had an 'incident' in an airplane and we read the front page article. We were like ??? What??? For the majority of people, the article was probably fine. But for the pilots and airplane industry it not only didn't make any sense, but it was so poorly researched that we stopped buying that paper altogether. :)Now when I watch the news, I realize they are only showing one part of the truth, not all of it. When you see the things in Iraq and things in the world, you have to remember that it is only one person's version.I think it applies to everything submitted.

Especially since the article was only written on heresay, nobody was interviewed, not the FAA, not the pilot, not the copilot...Just people standing around wondering what had happened. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it was just written so stupidly...